Bush and the firefighters

Well, today's unfiltered talking point is this little tidbit about what our Fearless Leader is proposing to do to help America's first responders (police & fire):

Bush introduced his budget yesterday morning. When we talked about it on yesterday’s Unfiltered, we figured everyone else in the media was gearing up, like us, to highlight the things he was cutting that he had previously said he supported.

Then today’s papers roll around, and no one – NO ONE! – is talking about the fact that Bush is cutting federal grants to police by 90%. From 600 million to 60 million. And he wants to cut 215 million out of federal grants to firefighters.

How about we make a deal, Shrub? You’ll be allowed to keep talking about 9/11 and sending Cheney to firehouses and wrapping yourself up in the glory of “America’s Heroes”, when you stop gutting cops’ and firefighters’ funding. Is that fair?

I think if you read the Boston Globe over the past couple of weeks, you'd be pretty outraged over the budget cuts, particularly in light of this special report.

These sobering statistics come to us from the Boston Globe: ...In 2002, only about half of the local fire departments in the state -- 54 percent -- met the fire industry goal of arriving within 6 minutes of the first alarm at 90 percent of building fires. Across the nation, the showing was even worse, with only 35 percent of departments meeting the response time goal.

Don't you think that the federal budget should include any assistance they can manage to the local police and fire departments? If you think these cuts are a responsible idea, let me just remind you who went into the World Trade Centers first after the planes hit? Shouldn't the government be doing everything in its power to make sure that our police and fire depart ments have the training and resources that they need so they can be the best equipped and the best prepared, if such an event ever happened again?


Better let congress know how you feel.